Xerxes' Invasion of Greece: Thermopylae and Salamis

The event

Fulfilling his father's ambition, Xerxes launched an enormous land and naval invasion of Greece in 480 BC. At the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylae, King Leonidas of Sparta and a small allied Greek force — remembered chiefly for his legendary 300 Spartans — held off the Persian army for three days before being overwhelmed, buying precious time for the rest of Greece even as Xerxes' forces went on to burn Athens.

Weeks later, the outnumbered Greek fleet lured the larger Persian navy into the cramped strait of Salamis and destroyed it, breaking the momentum of the invasion. The following year, allied Greek forces finished the job at the Battle of Plataea (479 BC), and Xerxes' grand campaign ended in failure. He returned to his Persian court at Susa — the very court, and very likely the very season, in which the events of Esther's story were quietly unfolding.